See how Viktor Hovland dressed for success at the 2023 BMW Championship.
There is no hotter golfer in the world than Viktor Hovland.
The 25-year-old Norwegian won his second-consecutive tournament, firing a final-round 63 to hold off Xander Schauffele and win the 2023 FedEx Cup Playoffs.
David Dusek recently took a deep dive into Hovland’s winning equipment, so let’s dive into the champion’s closet and see how Viktor dressed for success in J.Lindeberg apparel at the 2023 Tour Championship.
PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan got the Roger Goodell treatment on Sunday night.
Goodell, the longtime commissioner of the NFL, is often booed when he speaks at events like the Pro Football Hall of Fame induction ceremony or the NFL Draft. Monahan got the same response when he stepped to the mic to introduce Viktor Hovland as the winner of the 2023 Tour Championship and the PGA Tour’s season-long race for the FedEx Cup.
The commissioner recently returned to work after taking some time off to deal with a health issue, but did give his annual State of the PGA Tour press conference ahead of this week’s season finale at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta. Monahan addressed his health but was silent on the pending deal between the Tour and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund.
🚨🗣️👀 The crowd in Atlanta greets Jay Monahan with boos on 18 green at the trophy presentation … pic.twitter.com/W2FQNd18ma
ATLANTA – When Viktor Hovland won the Hero World Challenge in December, it put a bow on a year that was defined by close calls but otherwise was short on victory. For some, it would have represented a time to kick back, enjoy the holidays and assume his end-of-the-season winning form would be a springboard to bigger things, but not Hovland. He sought to get better and that meant it was time to re-make himself into a more complete player.
“If you want to get to the next level, you have to look introspectively,” he said. “I think when you try to be honest with yourself and ask yourself, OK, how can I get better, I just basically have to force myself to change a couple of these mindset things.”
All the hard work – to his swing, short game, use of Aim Point and course strategy – paid off, culminating in back-to-back wins and a prize of $18 million as the FedEx Cup champion. On another hot, humid day that led to a nearly two-hour weather delay, Hovland carded a 7-under 63 at East Lake Golf Club and rolled to a five-stroke victory over Xander Schauffele in the 30-man Tour Championship, the 47th event of the 2022-23 season and third and final leg of the FedEx Cup Playoffs.
“He just keeps his foot on the pedal,” three-time FedEx Cup champion Rory McIlroy said, “just isn’t scared.”
No fear and a refusal to be complacent are attributes that have made the 25-year-old Norwegian a three-time winner this season and one of the best players in the game. Despite winning the U.S. Amateur in 2018 and finding immediate success on the PGA Tour as one of the best ballstrikers in golf, Hovland grew frustrated with his consistency last season.
“It’s a little frustrating showing up to events when you don’t feel like you have your best stuff,” he said before winning in the Bahamas in December. “You don’t have the confidence over the ball thinking, ‘OK, I’m going to stuff this 7-iron,’ because that’s what I used to do when I first came out here and the last two years basically it’s been pretty deadly from the fairway.”
Hovland’s frustration boiled over and in his search to identify flaws in his game that could help him challenge for world No. 1, he changed swing coaches in January, hiring Joe Mayo, better known in social media circles as the Trackman Maestro.
Viktor Hovland and caddie Shay Knight on the sixth hole during the final round of the 2023 Tour Championship at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta. (Photo: Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)
“It is amazing that a player could win a tournament and not be happy with themselves,” Mayo said of Hovland switching coaches shortly after a win, but Mayo’s seen pros who have attributed a win to “smoke and mirrors.”
Switching coaches can be a risky proposition for a player. It can be a recipe for disaster but Mayo noted that Hovland is too savvy to let that happen.
“He’s not gonna let any instructor screw him up,” Mayo said. “He’s too smart for it. He’s got a great bullshit meter, as I would say.”
Mayo studied 3-D imaging of Hovland’s swing and helped him reestablish a repeatable swing and restore faith in his squeeze cut. Hovland said he’s had his best driving season. East Lake is too difficult to play from its wiry rough but Hovland, who ranked first in driving accuracy for the second straight week, could be aggressive and go flag-hunting.
“His ballstriking is probably top 3 on Tour, especially when he’s playing well,” said Edoardo Molinari, a winner of three DP Tour titles, who doubles as Hovland’s performance coach. “He doesn’t miss a shot.”
His short-game was another story. Early in his career, Hovland admitted his chipping game “sucked.” He ranked 191st in Strokes Gained: Around the Green last season.
“Before, when I was standing over every shot, I was like, ‘Don’t duff it, skull it, don’t leave it in the bunker,” Hovland said last week. “Me and a buddy of mine, we made up this saying: Just land it on and keep it on. We set the bar pretty low when we had a chip. Now it’s a lot of fun to be able to open up that face and just slap the ground and put some friction on the ball.”
At the Tour Championship, Hovland ranked first in scrambling as he notched his sixth career PGA Tour title. Mayo said he didn’t even discuss the short game with Hovland during their first month together. On Tuesday of the Genesis Invitational in February, Mayo told his pupil, “Anybody that can put a 4-iron on the back of the ball at 105 miles an hour and hit it 240, are you telling me that you can’t chip a golf ball? I don’t accept that, and I don’t buy it.”
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Mayo introduced the short-game package in tiny morsels throught the Players Championship in March. Hovland has improved to 105th in SG: Around the Green this season.
Mayo points out that that figure doesn’t take into account when they started working together. Mayo asked Molinari to run his short game stats from the Players through the FedEx St. Jude Championship and the numbers don’t lie: He’s gained .176 shots, “which puts him at about 55th,” Mayo said.
“That’s been the difference from being still a top-10 player in the world to what he’s done this year,” McIlroy said.
The final ingredient in turning Hovland into his best self this season was improving his course management. He began working with Molinari last year but it was this spring where they made one of their biggest discoveries. After the Masters, where Hovland finished T-7, Mayo asked Molinari to crunch some numbers and discovered that when Hovland attacked greens with pitching wedge through 8-iron, he was short-siding himself 30 percent of the time and the Tour average is 20 percent of the time.
“Sometimes he just misses in spots where no one would get up and down,” Molinari said. “The short game is less of an issue than it is believed to be.”
Hovland compared his new-found focus on course management to the game of poker and placing smart bets depending on the hand he’s dealt. He implemented the strategy at the PGA Championship and finished T-2, and it worked to perfection at the Memorial in June, the first of his three wins in his last eight events.
“Anytime you can tilt math to your advantage, that can be huge,” he said.
Mayo has beaten into Hovland’s head that in Tiger Woods’s heyday, he made a living off of hitting safely to 20 feet, shooting 70 and winning a bundle of majors.
“It’s called boring golf and if Viktor Hovland plays boring golf, he’s going to be hard to beat,” Mayo said.
A week ago, at the BMW Championship near Chicago, Hovland said he “blacked out for a minute” en route to a final-round 61, which included seven birdies and a back-nine 28 to clip world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler and Matt Fitzpatrick.
At East Lake, where he won the 2018 East Lake Cup men’s stroke play title, which included his first hole-in-one at the par-3 11th, Hovland began the week in second place with a stroke allocation of 8 under in the staggered start. With rounds of 68-64-66, he built a commanding six-stroke lead and he continued his assault on par with four birdies in his first six holes. Schauffele (62) did his best to chip away at the lead, making birdie at seven of his first 12 holes to trim the deficit to three.
“I’ll hold my head up high,” Schauffele said. “It was the most fun I had losing in quite some time.”
Just when it looked like it was about to become a taut affair, Hovland canned a clutch 23-foot par putt at No. 13, the longest putt he made all week, and tacked on birdies at 16 and 17 for good measure to wrap up a bogey-free final round and a total score of 27 under that made the walk to the 18th green a foregone conclusion. It was a testament to how far Hovland’s game has progressed.
“I’m very hard on myself and I felt like even though I had the game to compete, I never truly believed it,” he said. “I’ve just gotten better and better every single year, and with that comes the belief and I feel like the belief was the last missing piece.”
There’s a lot of hungry players behind me who can shoot 61 tomorrow. I’ve got to be ready.”
ATLANTA — It’s Viktor Hovland’s world right now; we’re just living in it.
The 25-year-old Norwegian shot a 4-under 66 at East Lake Golf in Atlanta to improve to 20-under par and open a six-stroke lead at the Tour Championship, the third and final leg of the FedEx Cup Playoffs.
Hovland carded back-to-back birdies at Nos. 6 and 7, the latter a 12-foot putt. He held a four-stroke advantage at 18 under when play was suspended due to lightning in the area.
“We thought last Sunday was good,” CBS’s Frank Nobilo said. “This is every bit as good.”
Viktor Hovland strokes gained around the green ranks on PGA Tour
Last season: 191st This season entering PGA: 170th Since PGA Championship began: 20th
Hovland came back out when play resumed and made back-to-back birdies at Nos. 12 and 13. He made a bogey at 14, but drilled a 6-iron to 15 feet at the water-guarded 212-yard par-3 15th.
“The pin was on the right which made the green feel a little bigger for me,” he said. “It was a perfect 6-iron.”
While a touchdown seems like it should be an insurmountable edge — it is the largest 54-hole lead lost in Tour history — Scottie Scheffler blew a lead of the same amount last year in trying to win the $18 million winner’s prize. That’s over 192 million Krone for Hovland.
“That’s a lot of cash,” he said. “But we’re here to win tournaments. There’s a lot of hungry players behind me who can shoot 61 tomorrow. I’ve got to be ready.”
Players from outside the U.S., age 25 or younger, with 3+ wins in the same PGA Tour season the last 40 years:
One round and 18 holes separate one golfer from winning the 2023 Tour Championship and FedEx Cup Playoffs. And the golfer with the best shot (by far) of winning?
Viktor Hovland.
The 25-year-old from Norway shot 4-under 66 on Saturday at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta, moving to 20 under for the tournament. Hovland, who won the BMW Championship last week and the Memorial Tournament earlier in the season, leads by six shots heading into the final round. Xander Schauffele is second at 14 under, and Collin Morikawa and Keegan Bradley are tied for third at 13 under. Six shots matches the largest 54-hole lead on Tour this year.
Last year, Rory McIlroy trailed by six heading to Sunday before chasing down Scottie Scheffler for the FedEx Cup.
From tee times to TV and streaming info, here’s everything you need to know for the final round of the 2023 Tour Championship. All times Eastern.
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Sunday tee times
Tee time
Players
10:56 a.m.
Emiliano Grillo, Taylor Moore
11:07 a.m.
Jordan Spieth, Jason Day
11:18 a.m.
Si Woo Kim, Sungjae Im
11:29 a.m.
Tony Finau, Tom Kim
11:40 a.m.
Rickie Fowler, Nick Taylor
11:56 a.m.
Corey Conners, Russell Henley
12:07 p.m.
Tyrrell Hatton, Brian Harman
12:18 p.m.
Lucas Glover, Sam Burns
12:29 p.m.
Matt Fitzpatrick, Tommy Fleetwood
12:40 p.m.
Sepp Straka, Max Homa
12:56 p.m.
Adam Schenk, Rory McIlroy
1:07 p.m.
Scottie Scheffler, Patrick Cantlay
1:18 p.m.
Wyndham Clark, Jon Rahm
1:29 p.m.
Keegan Bradley, Collin Morikawa
1:40 p.m.
Viktor Hovland, Xander Schauffele
How to watch
You can watch Golf Channel for free on fuboTV. ESPN+ is the exclusive home for PGA Tour Live streaming. All times Eastern.
ATLANTA — There’s $18 million reasons why Rory McIlroy isn’t express mailing it in this week at the Tour Championship despite suffering muscle spasms in his lower back.
That’s the winner’s haul as the season-long FedEx Cup champion finds a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Last place in the 30-man field? $500,000. Nice work if you can get it. But everyone that made it to East Lake already has filled their coffers with a minimum of $5 million this season. No one’s going hungry.
And yet when McIlroy was asked whether he was frustrated that his back went out on him ahead of the playoff finale, he didn’t hesitate in his response.
“I would rather it pop up now than in three or four weeks’ time,” he said, a reference to the Ryder Cup, which is scheduled for Sept. 29-Oct. 1.
There’s no purse at the biennial match between the U.S. and Europe, just bragging rights that last a lifetime. There’s only three certainties in life: death, taxes and anytime someone says it’s not about the money, it’s always about the money.
So much of the talk in golf for the past few years has centered around the all mighty dollar and the obscene amount of guaranteed money being paid by the Saudi Arabian-backed LIV Golf to pro golfers who hit a little white ball into a hole. From skyrocketing purses to paying PIP money based on popularity, the PGA Tour has tried to buy the loyalty of its biggest names. But to hear Masters champion Jon Rahm tell it, he’s never focused on the money.
“It’s one of the things that frustrates me about watching this broadcast. Like, we’re not thinking if we miss a putt how much it’s going to cost us money-wise. No chance. Like, none whatsoever,” he said. “You’re trying to finish as high as possible. You’re trying to win a tournament. It’s one of my pet peeves when they make this tournament all about money because I think it takes away from it.
“When you win a Green Jacket, I can tell you right now that any major champion this year might not remember how much money they made. And that’s the beauty about this game and I think that’s kind of how it should be. Obviously I’m saying that being in an extremely privileged position financially. I mean, at that point, from first to second, you’re making a ton of money, so it’s more about winning than the prize itself.”
Shortly after Rahm made his comments, world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler, who earned more than $21 million in official money this season, a new single-season Tour record, was asked if it ever dawned on him what the difference between earning first and fifth place money?
“Well, I don’t know how much it is,” he said. “I mean, no. I’m very grateful to play golf for money, but that’s not my motivation. It’s as simple as that.”
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When asked if he knew how much money he won as Masters champion last year, Scheffler pointed at his agent and replied, “He’s got my bank book. I don’t know. Just kidding.”
Collin Morikawa, the 36-hole co-leader at the Tour Championship, entered the FedEx Cup Playoffs in 2021 in the pole position but struggled and finished 26th. The pressure of winning the FedEx Cup is real.
But when asked whether he could recall the last time he thought about the money, he said, “I really haven’t. Look, I’ve been very fortunate to get off to a great start in my career and never had to really think about that. I’ve been lucky. It’s weird this year, with all the designated events, next year signature events, it’s always, everyone makes it about the money. But I really don’t care. I would play these tournaments because I want to play against the best guys in the world.
“I want to win. And whether you get a dollar out of it or 10 million dollars out of it, a win’s a win. Like, at the end of the day, the wins mean so much to myself that I would trade ’em all in for just another win. I would trade the money for another win and more majors. Because people don’t understand how good it feels. That’s what you dream of. That’s what you desire to do. That’s what you want to do. That’s why you practice. Yeah, you just want the win.”
While the rich are bound to get richer at golf’s ultimate payday, the money can’t compete with the glory of golf’s majors and Ryder Cup. That’s what drives the great ones.
Here’s what you need to know from the second round of the 2023 Tour Championship.
ATLANTA — Collin Morikawa went down a rabbit hole in search of a swing fix and grabbed ahold of one by the tail. Viktor Hovland continues to make birdies in bunches.
That’s how these two find themselves sharing the 36-hole lead at 16-under par at the midway point of the Tour Championship.
At one time on Friday, there were 13 golfers in the field of 30 within two strokes of the lead, but by day’s end, the co-leaders had signed for a pair of 64s at East Lake Golf Club and only six golfers were within four strokes of the lead.
Morikawa, who is seeking his first win since the 2021 British Open and began the tournament nine strokes behind Scottie Scheffler in the staggered-start scoring system used to determine the FedEx Cup champion, was searching for his game on Tuesday afternoon on the range.
“I was going to treat Monday through Wednesday this week just as a kind of relaxing, get into it, game felt good enough to play well, and I went down this rabbit hole of just kind of — I hit one bad shot in the practice round, tried to figure it out, was out on the range two more hours,” he said.
With birdies on his final two holes, Morikawa opened with rounds of 61-64 to break the Tour Championship 36-hole scoring record of 127, previously set by Tiger Woods. He’s the only player in the field who is bogey-free through 36 holes.
“If I was going to tell myself I was going to be 16 under through two days, with my total score or whatever you want to call it, I would have taken that,” Morikawa said.
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He’d also take ranking first in the field in Strokes Gained: Tee to Green, driving accuracy and proximity. His putting hasn’t been too shabby, either.
“I’ve never seen him look as confident on the greens as we have so far this week,” said PGA Tour Radio’s Dennis Paulson.
Hovland, who won last week at the BMW Championship and entered the week in second place in the season-long FedEx Cup, is hotter than the weather, which tipped out at 97 degrees Friday. Hovland birdied five holes in a six-hole stretch on the back nine starting at No. 12 to post 64 and grab a share of his fifth career 36-hole lead.
“We’ve all grinded out the whole year to be at this spot but we’re only halfway there and so got to keep playing the way I’ve been playing,” he said. “When things feel good, you just trust your feels and visualize it and when it’s that easy, you just want to keep it that easy.”
Both Hovland and Morikawa are certainly making it look easy so far.
Here are four more things to know from the Tour Championship.
It’s Viktor Hovland’s world, we’re just living in it.
The 25-year-old from Norway has been playing out of his mind the past three rounds of golf. He shot a 61 in the final round to win the BMW Championship last week. Then on Friday, he shot a 6-under 64, including a 30 on the back nine, to stay in the lead heading to the weekend at the 2023 Tour Championship in Atlanta at East Lake Golf Club.
Hovland sits at 16 under after two rounds, tied with Collin Morikawa for the 36-hole lead in the final Tour event of the 2022-23 season. Morikawa started the week at 1 under and has carded rounds of 61-64 to vault up the leaderboard.
Scottie Scheffler, who entered the week No. 1 in the FedEx Cup standings, is solo third at 14 under.
From tee times to TV and streaming info, here’s everything you need to know for the third round of the 2023 Tour Championship. All times Eastern.
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Saturday tee times
Tee time
Players
12:21 p.m.
Emiliano Grillo, Taylor Moore
12:32 p.m.
Jordan Spieth, Si Woo Kim
12:43 p.m.
Corey Conners, Sungjae Im
12:54 p.m.
Tommy Fleetwood, Rickie Fowler
1:05 p.m.
Nick Taylor, Sepp Straka
1:16 p.m.
Tony Finau, Jason Day
1:27 p.m.
Brian Harman, Tom Kim
1:38 p.m.
Russell Henley, Lucas Glover
1:54 p.m.
Max Homa, Patrick Cantlay
2:05 p.m.
Sam Burns, Adam Schenk
2:16 p.m.
Tyrrell Hatton, Matt Fitzpatrick
2:27 p.m.
Rory McIlroy, Wyndham Clark
2:38 p.m.
Xander Schauffele, Jon Rahm
2:49 p.m.
Scottie Scheffler, Keegan Bradley
3 p.m.
Viktor Hovland, Collin Morikawa
How to watch
You can watch Golf Channel for free on fuboTV. ESPN+ is the exclusive home for PGA Tour Live streaming. All times Eastern.
Here’s everything you need to know from the first round at East Lake.
ATLANTA — On a sweltering hot day, Adam Schenk torched East Lake Golf Club in his Tour Championship debut to the tune of 7-under 63. Yet he still got beat by two strokes in his pairing with fellow competitor Collin Morikawa.
“It sounds bad to say, but I’ve never won out here, so I guess I get kind of used to losing a little bit,” Schenk said. “But I played great, he just played a little better.”
If it makes Schenk feel any better, the 26-year old Morikawa posted his career-low on the PGA Tour, a sizzling 9-under 61 that was as hot as the temperature. Morikawa, who entered the week at No. 24 in the FedEx Cup, began the tournament at 1 under and 9 strokes behind FedEx Cup leader Scottie Scheffler in the staggered start. By the time the day was over he was in the thick of the trophy hunt, tied with Keegan Bradley, who shot 63, and Viktor Hovland (68) for the lead at 10 under.
Scheffler (71) led by as many as five strokes on the front nine but hit it in the water and made a triple bogey at 15 to squander his lead. At the conclusion of the Tour Championship, the player with the lowest stroke total over 72 holes when combined with FedEx Cup Starting Strokes, will be crowned the FedEx Cup champion.
“Shoot, no better time, I guess, in our Tour Championship to show up and start playing some golf,” Morikawa said.
The two-time major champion said he made some subtle changes to his setup on Tuesday, and his iron play shined Thursday. He hit 16 greens in regulation and gained nearly four strokes on the field with his approach shots and ranked first in proximity too. Walking up the 15th hole with caddie JJ Jakovac, Morikawa joked he had already hit more shots pin high than he had in four rounds at most tournaments of late. At the water-guarded 224-yard par-3 15th, Morikawa oozed with such confidence that he didn’t even bother to watch the ball flight.
“Because I knew where it was going to go, and that’s the kind of control you want,” he said.
On one of the rare occasions when Morikawa misfired, he got a lucky break when he tugged his tee shot at the fifth hole and it ricocheted off a tree, back to the fairway and he made birdie.
“That’s kind of the momentum stuff that I just haven’t seen all year,” he said.
One hole later, he drilled his second shot from 224 yards to inside 4 feet and made eagle. Morikawa and Schenk combined to make 15 birdies and that eagle and nary a bogey between them for what would’ve been a best-ball 13-under 57, and both agreed they fed off each other as the round built.
“There’s a rhythm to it,” Morikawa said. “It was just really, really easy I think for both of us.”
Schenk, 31, also started the tournament trailing by nine strokes but closed the gap with four birdies in his final five holes and improved to T-5.
“I just fed off more of Collin than anything probably, and then I made some, and then he made some maybe off of me, but it’s definitely an enjoyable day when you are playing with someone that does play really well,” said Schenk, who is searching for his first career Tour title and summed up the round “as one of those days where nothing could go wrong.”
Here are four more things to know from the first round of the Tour Championship.
ATLANTA — Less than 24 hours before his Thursday tee time at the Tour Championship, Rory McIlroy couldn’t address a golf ball. That’s how much his lower-right back hurt.
“I was at the bottom of a squat, a body-weight squat, and my whole lower back spasmed, seized up. I couldn’t move,” McIlroy said. “So to get to where I am today is good.”
The 34-year-old McIlroy grimaced frequently and set a personal record for one-armed finishes but posted a gritty round of even-par 70 at East Lake in the first round of the Tour Championship, the final playoff event that will determine the FedEx Cup champion.
McIlroy, who is the defending champ, started the day three strokes behind in the staggered-start tournament and claimed to be “over the moon” to not lose any ground. He said he’s suffering from a muscle spasm that began bothering him earlier in the week.
“The muscle spasm is what’s giving me the discomfort,” he said. “I think when I play a lot of golf, especially the end of the season, I always have to manage my right side. My right side always gets pretty tight, my rib cage, intercostals, lats, like, all the way down, right hip.”
On Tuesday morning, McIlroy said he felt a little tight, and he stretched and used a foam roller at his home gym.
“I went to grab something and my whole right side just completely seized up, spasm. So I spent two hours with the physio at home, flew up here, felt a little better, some treatment, then Wednesday morning still my right side was feeling better, and then went into the gym just to do some movements and stuff,” he said.
McIlroy said he arrived at the golf course Thursday six hours before his 1:49 p.m. ET tee time, hopped in the cold plunge and worked with a team of trainers on his ailing back. He hit 20 wedges around 10 a.m., the first balls he has hit since competing Sunday at the BMW Championship.
Rory McIlroy plays a shot on the fifth hole during the first round of the 2023 Tour Championship at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta. (Photo: Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images)
“I felt OK, so then just thought I would give it a go,” he said. “I was always going to tee off. It was just a matter of how I felt on the course. And it got progressively a little tighter as I went, but it will hopefully get loosened up here and just another 18 hours of recovery and go again tomorrow.”
McIlroy didn’t seem to be swinging full tilt, but he still was able to outdrive Jon Rahm at the first hole. He made two bogeys on the front nine and didn’t make a birdie until his 10th hole. In all, McIlroy made four birdies and four bogeys for the day.
“I hung in there and I just felt like if I could get through today, it’s better than it was yesterday, hopefully tomorrow’s better than it was today, and just sort of try to keep progressing,” he said.
